


Strange Things Did Happen Here, No Stranger Would It Be

by bravest_person_in_Wonderland



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (1963), Doctor Who (2005), Doctor Who (Big Finish Audio)
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Based on a Tumblr Post, Chronic Pain, Depression, Gen, Heavy Angst, I Made Myself Cry, POV The Master (Doctor Who), Spoilers for the second Missy boxset, Suicidal Thoughts, or at least i tried for one
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-18
Updated: 2021-03-18
Packaged: 2021-03-27 00:28:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 701
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30114384
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bravest_person_in_Wonderland/pseuds/bravest_person_in_Wonderland
Summary: Missy refuses to become the Lumiat, and the Master burns.(Or, my observations from watching The Timeless Children + a theory from Tumblr)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 3





	Strange Things Did Happen Here, No Stranger Would It Be

**Author's Note:**

> A friend of mine showed me a Tumblr post about the concept that Missy retained her memories of meeting the Lumiat and that the Dhawan!Master is a direct response and reaction to that, and I latched onto it very firmly. 
> 
> Watching TTC pains me a lot because the Master looks so incredibly physically ill the entire time, like he looks like he's in the worst possible kind of pain imaginable and not just because of the mental breakdown he's having, and I couldn't just _not_ write something about that 😅
> 
> I chose not to use the Archive warnings because I wasn't sure if this counts as Graphic Depictions of Violence — please mind the warnings in the tags, and if you feel like I need to tag anything else please let me know in the comments.

The Master wakes up to the fading glow of his own regeneration, the faint buzzing sound of the Elysian Field technology _(both irrelevant),_ and excruciating pain. 

Par for the course, he thinks at first, stumbling away from the clearing where he and himself committed murder and suicide. He has rewritten his very cell structure twice _(he can't bear to become the Lumiat, so she can exist in an adjacent timeline and he will become who he is now),_ and there's bound to be some pain beyond that of a normal regeneration. 

Regeneration always stings a little, sometimes a lot, but this... by God, it _hurts._ Maybe there's more than one reason the Time Lord council outlawed the use of Elysian Fields all those years ago. This pain, though, the tearing and burning and sharp ache of his cells shifting and reforming... it births him. It forms him. It is the foundation of his new self. _(His identity is forged in the fire of torment and never quenched; he is brittle, breakable)._

He goes to Gallifrey _(he refuses to call it home)_ before he becomes O. The pain hasn't faded, and he wonders if the Lumiat feels this, too. It fuels his rampage, though, and the Matrix's revelations are like fuel on the fire that is his agony. 

Becoming O is like slipping into an old skin. The personality comes so naturally that he can almost forget the torture he's in, both mentally and physically. Texting the Doctor is almost like that first breath he took after unlacing Missy's _(ridiculous)_ corset, but it sours every time he remembers what the Matrix told him _(every time he remembers who he is, because of the Doctor)._

The heat of Australia matches the heat of his anger, but oh, does it exacerbate that cell-rewritten, identity-deep pain. He doesn't sleep anymore, not unless he overdoses on melatonin. He lays facedown on his bed and deeply, deeply resents the respiratory bypass he was born with. He screams and sobs into a pillow, never once lifting his head, and when he drifts off on the exquisite exhaustion of tears, he wishes he was capable of suffocating. 

He has a knife, he has a gun, he has any number of weapons and sharp objects at his disposal; he could sit down and slit his own throat a dozen times over and end the agony right now, but he has yet to rub the Doctor’s face in the ashes of the planet that is not their home. 

Revealing himself to the Doctor _(the Lumiat mentioned this one, didn't she, and by Rassilon are the two of them similar; they must be peas in a pod)_ is the closest to painless he's been in recent memory. The high wears off all too soon when she leaves him in that godforsaken dimension. _(It's like he's on a bad drug trip, and maybe that's all his life really is)._ He makes it back to O's house in Australia and sits for hours at the desk, his head on the tabletop for no reason but that it's blessedly cold to the touch, and a tear drips onto the surface. _(He didn't know Time Lords are susceptible to things like this, and he feels more human than he ever has; he despises it)._

When he sees her again _(the glorious golden blondeness that sits at the center of his red-hot soul; the reason for everything he loves and hates so much)_ he bounces and bounds and giggles because that's all he knows how to do. He's looked in the mirror, seen the way his eyes belie his giddiness in favour of revealing the torture he's in, but the Doctor never notices. _(He laughs like he's about to cry, because he is, and his eyes stay shut longer than he intends when he closes them to think; he wishes Ashad's death particle had released)._

The Master feels nothing when the old man detonates the death particle, because the excruciation the explosion should bring is already inside him _(and he could cry for joy at the escape it offers). (This is the first real sleep he's had since his birth; he doesn't care if he should wake)._

**Author's Note:**

> I myself had a bit of a breakdown trying to figure out how to end this. The ending i settled on feels a little meh, so I may eventually rewrite it, but I think it works pretty well. 
> 
> Please leave a comment if you feel inclined to, I really love hearing people's thoughts and feelings about my works! 😁


End file.
